Richard knew of no person answering to his aunt’s description in whose company he could have been seen.

“Tell me, I say!  Don’t quibble.  Do you know any woman of bad character?”

The acquaintance of a lady very much misjudged and ill-used by the world, Richard admitted to.

Urgent grave advice Mrs. Doria tendered her nephew, both from the moral and the worldly point of view, mentally ejaculating all the while:  “That ridiculous System!  That disgraceful marriage!” Sir Austin in his mountain solitude was furnished with serious stuff to brood over.

The rumour came to Lady Blandish.  She likewise lectured Richard, and with her he condescended to argue.  But he found himself obliged to instance something he had quite neglected.  “Instead of her doing me harm, it’s I that will do her good.”

Lady Blandish shook her head and held up her finger.  “This person must be very clever to have given you that delusion, dear.”

“She is clever.  And the world treats her shamefully.”

“She complains of her position to you?”

“Not a word.  But I will stand by her.  She has no friend but me.”

“My poor boy! has she made you think that?”

“How unjust you all are!” cried Richard.

“How mad and wicked is the man who can let him be tempted so!” thought Lady Blandish.

He would pronounce no promise not to visit her, not to address her publicly.  The world that condemned her and cast her out was no better—­worse for its miserable hypocrisy.  He knew the world now, the young man said.

“My child! the world may be very bad.  I am not going to defend it.  But you have some one else to think of.  Have you forgotten you have a wife, Richard?”

“Ay! you all speak of her now.  There’s my aunt:  ’Remember you have a wife!’ Do you think I love any one but Lucy? poor little thing!  Because I am married am I to give up the society of women?”

“Of women!”

“Isn’t she a woman?”

“Too much so!” sighed the defender of her sex.

Adrian became more emphatic in his warnings.  Richard laughed at him.  The wise youth sneered at Mrs. Mount.  The hero then favoured him with a warning equal to his own in emphasis, and surpassing it in sincerity.

“We won’t quarrel, my dear boy,” said Adrian.  “I’m a man of peace.  Besides, we are not fairly proportioned for a combat.  Ride your steed to virtue’s goal!  All I say is, that I think he’ll upset you, and it’s better to go at a slow pace and in companionship with the children of the sun.  You have a very nice little woman for a wife—­well, good-bye!”

To have his wife and the world thrown at his face, was unendurable to Richard; he associated them somewhat after the manner of the rick and the marriage.  Charming Sir Julius, always gay, always honest, dispersed his black moods.

“Why, you’re taller,” Richard made the discovery.